The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 eBook

hopeful and ready to rise in all its might when the
day of glory dawns.

If I am not mistaken, these words of Germany’s
greatest poet express accurately what the German people
during the last hundred years has been striving for—­national
culture and national pre-eminence in every field of
human activity. To advocate the reduction of Germany
to a land of isolated scientists, poets, artists,
and educators is tantamount to a call for the destruction
of the German Nation.

KUNO FRANCKE.

Harvard University, Sept. 5, 1914.

DR. ELIOT’S SECOND LETTER

The Stout and Warlike Breed

To the Editor of The New York Times:

There is nothing new in the obsession of the principal
European nations that, in order to be great and successful
in the world as it is, they must possess military
power available for instant aggression on weak nations,
as well as for effective defense against strong ones.

When Sir Francis Bacon wrote his essay on “The
True Greatness of Kingdoms and Estates” he remarked
that forts, arsenals, goodly races of horses, armaments,
and the like would all be useless “except the
breed and disposition of the people be stout and warlike.”
He denied that money is the sinews of war, giving
preference to the sinews of men’s arms, and
quoted Solon’s remark to Croesus, “Sir,
if any other come that hath better iron than you,
he will be master of all this gold”—­a
truly Bismarckian proposition. Indeed, Sir Francis
Bacon says explicitly “that the principal point
of greatness in any State is to have a race of military
men.”

Goethe, reflecting on the wretchedness of the German
people as a whole, found no comfort in the German
genius for science, literature, and art, or only a
miserable comfort which “does not make up for
the proud consciousness of belonging to a nation strong,
respected, and feared.” Because Germany
in his time was weak in the military sense, he could
write: “I have often felt a bitter grief
at the thought of the German people, which is so noble
individually, and so wretched as a whole”; and
he longed for the day when the national spirit, kept
alive and hopeful, should be “ready to rise
in all its might when the day of glory dawns.”

“The day of glory” was to be the day of
military power. Carlyle said of Germany and France
in November, 1870, “that noble, patient, deep,
pious, and solid Germany should be at length welded
into a nation, and become Queen of the Continent,
instead of vaporing, vainglorious, gesticulating,
quarrelsome, restless, and oversensitive France, seems
to me that hopefulest public fact that has occurred
in my time.” How did Germany attain to
this position of “Queen of the Continent”?
By creating and maintaining, with utmost intelligence
and skill, the strongest army in Europe—­an
army which within six years had been used successfully
against Denmark, Austria, and France. Germany
became “Queen” by virtue of her military
power.